They Are So Bad
Binking wins. Dats what we do. Arizona has lost 20 road games in a row. That’s really almost impossible to wrap your brain around. Anyway, nice that we have teams like this to beat up on. If we can someone get to the all star break still held together and with a shot at the post season Z will work his magic and we’ll get the bullpen relief we need.
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
Crawfish continues to amaze. What a resurgence for one of the most popular Giants ever. On pace for well over 30 dingers and 100 RBI. Who saw that coming?
With his 15th bomb, Craw is tied for 10th with eight others, including Judge and Freeman, for HRs in all of MLB, and he’s done it in far fewer ABs than anybody tied or ahead of him except Tatis. Remarkable.
Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. Really happy for him. Without his bat and with Longo out for a long, the offense would really be in trouble. I grew up idolizing Chris Speier, but Craw is clearly the best SS in SF Giants history, if not all the way back to 1883.
Why the #35 tradition at SS – since Speier?
A little research shows lots of guys have worn 35 since Speier.
How could anyone forget Art Gardner?
His agent?
what about archways? Isn’t walkway due to open back up, in limited fashion, for pedestrians? Dickerson suggested park wasn’t that different with them closed, still tough to hit them out of.
D-Backs 20 straight road losses, and they still have a better road record than the Rox.
That 20 straight road losses really is mind-boggling. They’re going to bust out of it sooner rather than later, let’s hope it’s after Wednesday.
Tim Lincecum turns 37 today.
Wish the Giants would bring him back in some capacity.
Wonder how he’s wearing his hair these days…
I think SDawg is right–Z is gonna roll with who he has as far as pitching staff and pen. Baggs and Harris had great interview on Athletic while ago and H said Z is always asking him about AA level relief help. which is what they got in Wisler deal with Tampa. Wisler is guy Z found in off season, like McGee.
they’ve already added Littell Menez bros plus Leone Long and Sherfy. And tried others like Doval Santos yada yada, and Baragar just went back down.
Not to mention who is selling and how many teams would be looking for same. Acquiring haul like what Sabes did in 2010 so much harder these days.
Agree. The bullpen help will probably be predominantly in-house. Will be interesting to see how it all shakes-out.
As amazing as the D-backs losing 20 straight road games is the Oakland A’s winning 20 straight games in 2002.
https://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2018/4/30/17277860/1988-baltimore-orioles-losing-streak-21-games-record-zoinks
Agree that Craw continues to amaze. He is definitely one of my all-time favorites. Another three shut-out innings by the pen. Nice win.
BTW, DJ, thanks for the Speier pics in the frame. Most awesome. You didn’t have to do any of this, and it is greatly appreciated.
Glad you like it, Chuck.
I see you have a fellow Speier fanatic in Lurker John up above…
Right, Chuck (and ‘Dawg). I don’t see any pieces being moved to get pen help. Who is going to want anything on the current roster anyway? “Want a couple holograms? How about a bent Dick? How about some blundering base runners?”
And we are NOT trading any of our up-and-comers. That would be ludicrous. Regardless of how much this team is overachieving, there is little reason to believe we are serious WS contenders. And even if we do make it, we have been making due with the current crop of semi-consistent, semi-roadkill pen arms, and I see it continuing.
Maybe that little base hit last night will turn the Grave Duggar around.
Sometimes that’s all it takes.
Even I buried him this time…
Still way to early but I’m feeling a tragedy could unfold involving Crawford if he gets hosed from the A/S game.
Currently it’s Tatis jr in a runaway as starter, with Javy Baez 2nd and Corey Seager 3rd with Crawford 4th and only the top 3 I believe are eligible to go..
Seager is on the IL with a fractured hand but should be activated before the A/S game.Fan voting sucks at times as a much more deserving player might not make the team..
I’m not sure, I thought players have some say in who they feel should go,if they have any pull are not?
Maybe it comes down to Dodgers manager Dave Roberts,Seager’s manager who might ( not holding my breath)tell him due to just getting back I don’t want you to risk playing in this game..
Well how about Craw for the HR hitting contest which these days is probably bigger than the ASG which no one really cares about anymore. Was once a summer highlight that wouldn’t miss a second of…
I DON’T want Crawfish in either of those. Let him get the rest. He can fuel the rest of his season with the snub.
Jarlin, Leone and Sherfy surely have bookmarked the schedule for the Capitol Corridor commuter line; Sac and Richmond have guys ready for another shot or a first shot. Alvarez remains a favorite, for some reason, probably option issue, but he’s likely to get turned over, too, I suspect.
Heat wave headed to the Bay, so I hit my local convenience market for some ale. They were out of my preferred off-the-rack cans of double ipa, so I grabbed a six-pack of Drake’s Denogginizer bottles. I do like that beer; I don’t like bottles. My son has been trying for a long time to get me down to the Drake’s beer garden on Broadway, where many taps flow, I guess. May be time to try it.
My local market still requires masks, which is fine. The many people out walking in the hills this morning, however, were all happily mask free. Everyone was smiling.
Here in Idiotville, I see more people wearing masks outdoors than I did last summer when 100’s were dying every day…
Might be cool to have the weakest hitters in baseball in the HR contest.After all the games in Colorado let the weaklings like Sockless&Casali feel important for a day..
speaking of Casali, those 3 hits likely go a long way but hopefully at some point you’d expect Bart (lighting up AAA) to come up. But what would role be—play 1 rest 2 strictly as Posey backup, or more often?
Wonder same thing about Ramos. Kap as a platoon guy never starts Slater vs. RHP and his split numbers do suck. Slater had handful of ABs in last week. Yaz seems like only guy who avoids platoons, and Ruf is due back soon too. So would they give Ramos a shot to play almost every day, or spot start him instead?
If you bring a guy like Ramos fizz up, the hope is they play him all the time. There is no use in platooning him.
Love to see it, but do you think Kap would let him bat vs. RHP all the time? like I said only OF he does that with is Yaz. All the rest get subbed out vs. different thrower out of pen once starter gets replaced.
plus vs. RHP you have GD Tauchman Wade Jr. and Dickerson available. So either couple these guys are off the team or would be shoved to bench.
Slater played in both Texas games with 2 ABs in each, then got 4 ABs total vs. Nats. For the month of June he has total of 17 ABs, with 2 hits (one being last night rbi single) 1 BB and 6 Ks. If Ramos were to be promoted, would they DFA him?
Winning kind of complicates things, ironically. Everybody on the roster has contributed in some way to wins, so any new person that is brought up is going to be a goodbye to someone that has, in some way, contributed. There are no more Wislers on the roster, who basically did nothing much good. Casali is the closest to that. But then he goes and gets 3 hits. Will we regret those 3 hits? Are we going to regret Tauchman’s grand slam? Maybe so.
Ramos has had getting on to nearly 1200 ABs in the minors by end of this month.
Couple hundred+ at AA.
He’s at .851 OPS at Richmond, 34 games into this season, with 5 jacks.
He’s not exactly raking there, but AA back there is tough. He has a good hitting stat line.
Bring him up to AAA at the end of June. Let him play July in Sac and see where he is right before the trade deadline. If he’s not ready, so be it. But, he’ll be 22 in September. Is his overall game by end of July not as good as Tauchman? Plenty of teams bring up guys younger than that to see how they can do. Will Clark skipped AAA…
So did Panda, IIRC.
“I see you have a fellow Speier fanatic in Lurker John up above…”
Yes, I had delusions of being a major league shortstop in my early years. lulz. Speier was by far my favorite player of that particular era.
Casali got three hits, two of which travelled a collective 150 feet. Hardly confidence inspiring. I remain deeply unimpressed with that dude. Has he even hit a homer yet?
Timmeh 37? The hell you say. Where has the time gone? Here he is about 10 before his call-up.
10 DAYS.
He completely dominated the Rainiers in this game, touching 97 mph with his fastball on multiple occasions, then carving them up with that filthy change. His pops was sitting a few rows behind me videotaping his outing. I talked to him a bit. Nice guy.
I can’t remember ever being so excited about a Giants’ prospect coming up, even factoring in Posey, who I also saw play at Cheney Stadium, and Will Clark. I had followed Tim’s career at the UW and was thoroughly stoked when the M’s passed him up for Brandon Morrow and he fell to the G’s. I just had a feeling about him. Sure enough Sabes had the foresight to draft him.
The Mariners thought he was too small. Native Washingtonian, played right in their backyard and they passed on him. That alone pretty well sums up their entire existence, even though they’ve drafted and developed a shit-ton of great talent, they always do just enough to shoot themselves in the foot. Their loss was the Giants’s (and our) gain.
Happy birthday, Tim! Thanks for the greatest memories!
Ditto from me.
Small body, big heart.
I read the other day he and only one other pitcher shared certain accomplishments, I can’t remember exactly but it was something like: multiple no-hitters, multiple WSeries titles, multiple Cy Youngs, multiple strikeout champ titles. Other guy — Koufax.
Timmeh — one of the greatest Giants, EVER…
great pics, thanks.
Still think he might have furthered career if he’d gone to pen, but hope he’s happy where he is right now, back under radar.
He might well have. He looked pretty good out of the pen in, what was it, 2012? He’d probably gotten even better their as he got used to it. My guess is that he’s doing well. Pretty laid-back dude…
Cool shots of Timmy. Thanks, LJ.
Bobby Bonds single season record of 189 strikeouts in 1970 stood for 34 years.
It now ranks 30th on the single season list…
A true pioneer. If he’d had the benefit of the launch angle data today’s players enjoy, he might still hold a more exalted place on that list.
That’s unbelievable. Back then it was a sign of shame. Now it’s fully accepted. My how the game has changed and not for the better.
Teams would take guys out of the line up when they approached Bobby’s k record.
One more Timmeh tidbit, about a week after the Giants won the Series in 2010, me and a friend went to a Seahawks game. Still flying high after the win and going to the parade, I wore my well-worn Giants cap. The Hawks usually invite a guest to hoist that stupid Seahawks flag right before the game. Just so happens that this time it was Tim Lincecum and he got a rousing ovation. Very cool way to put a bow on the whole thing…
Love it. The last fan fest I went to was the 2010 one. Took my kids. I gave the camera to my oldest daughter and she went to the Q&A with Tim and took about 50 pics of him! Got a few from a game we sat by the Giants bullpen when he pitched as well. Think I got B Weezy as well. Shitm they might even be in the photo bucket.s
There is a couple. Lots of cool pics in there . . .
I was a huge Chris Speier fan and was so excited the Giants gave him the opening day SS job over a terrible Hal Lanier who just sucked.Speier besides playing beyond his 21 years of age as a rook was such a breath of fresh air at such a demanding position the veteran laden club drew more energy off of him imo to help them win the 1971 NL west.
Speier hit 8 HR’s that 1st season which matched the career total of an anemic batting Lanier.One of the best decision the organization ever did back then..
Yeah something about that number 35 Jersey speaks volumes with Speier,Aurilla ,now Crawford the best of all time at SS wearing that number.
Speier was a huge driver and energy guy for that 1971 team.
Really the last hurrah for Marichal and Mays. It was a flawed team, but just getting into the post season for the first time since ’62 was a real boost for Giants fans. I must have listened to every game that summer on my old transistor radio. They won the division in SanDiego, I think it was the very last game of the season…
Yep. They hadda pitch Marichal which was why he couldn’t open LCS…
Ah, the days of listening to games on the radio. That was my childhood when it came to sports, as well as listening to Bill King call Warriors games (best ever, IMO, and I got to listen a lot to Chick Hearn as well), and the great Lon Simmons calling 49ers games.
TV is great, but I miss those days…
Yeah, I was gaga over Speier, as only a 10 year old boy can be. He was just too cool for school…
The great Bobby Bonds. How is it that a guy with that kind of talent and career numbers is so often overlooked? One lousy homer from being the first 40-40 guy, which was unheard of at the time. Makes no sense, regardless of what ever personal issues he had. Maybe he was too far ahead of his time, I don’t know. I’m very happy he fought through that stuff and made it back to the G’s as a coach.
hmmnn. lineup I saw tweeted by Merc beat guy Kerry Crowley has 4 LHs in it: Yaz Crawford Belt and GD, despite fact AZ is starting LHP Alex Young. Might be pen game for them as this guy hasn’t started a game this season. He’s been in 26 games and thrown 28 innings to 3.45 ERA.
1. Austin Slater (R) LF
2. Mike Yastrzemski (L) RF
3. Buster Posey (R) C
4. Brandon Crawford (L) SS
5. Wilmer Flores (R) 3B
6. Brandon Belt (L) 1B
7. Donovan Solano (R) 2B
8. Steven Duggar (L) CF
9. Zack Littell (R) P
Kotter accomplishes the alternating R-L lineup.
Possibly a first.
An overrated thing IMO…
Sammy Long is going to come in after Littell starts things off for one inning.
Dass ist der Plan, per KNBR earlier…
Giant fan since ’65. So here is my all-time 25 man roster since that time and only players I have seen play (so no Orlando Cepeda on team).
11 pitchers:
SP – Marichal, Perry, Lincecum, Bumgarner, Cain, Schmidt
RP – Lefties – Lopez, Affeldt Righties – Wilson, Nen, Romo (over Beck)
Line-up
Bonds, Bo. RF
Mays CF
Bonds, Ba. LF
McCovey 1B
Kent 2B
Williams 3B
Posey C
Crawford SS (over Aurilia if you combine offense with defense)
Bench – Santiago (you have to have a back-up catcher), Clark, W., Mitchell, Clark, J., Sandoval, Aurilia (over Thompson, R.).
Thrill instead of McCovey and jack Clark over bobby B but I get your drift
Haller over Santiago at backup catcher.Santiago was only a Giant for 3 years.Loved the Ripper Jack Clark attitude,swagger and all,but he wasn’t a better all round talent over Bobby Bonds who could do it all.
Won’t even bother , cause I know Thrill is one of Flavor’s alltime best, but Seriously over HOF McCovey? But I get it BF was to young to see are remember the greatest , so that’s cool to form some of yours..
Since you only need 5 starters, I’d pull Cain out of the rotation and put Lavelle in the pen…
Great list. We had so many great players over the years.
Just like his last start, they started ZZ Top then Sammy to Seal 🦭the deal Long.
Don’t know why Kapler needs to do that especially against an atrocious D-Back team.It’s not like the kid showed any jitters in first game.Maybe Kapler’s just superstitious and just goes with what works.
Yeah, many games listened to in bed after bed-time under the covers to muffle the sound. I was 10 in 1971 as well, and loved the excitement he brought to the team. He and Fuentes were such a fun double-play pair.
Not to be a nit-picker, but….
Lanier started at shortstop on opening day for the ‘71 team. It was a few games before Speier, the talented rookie, was made the starter. Ironically, Lanier got two hits on opening day:
https://www.baseball-almanac.com/box-scores/boxscore.php?boxid=197104060SDN
Marichal threw a shut-out as the Giants won 4-0.
Mays hit an HR in the first inning.
I think Mays homered in the first 4 games of the ’71 season…
I looked it up; you are correct!
Game 5 was the first game of a doubleheader (!) and Mays was rested in that game. In the second game of the dh, he “only” hit a triple.
Once in a while I get one right.
Willie was about to turn 40.
I would wait for the mailman to bring my Sporting News every Friday…
The quest for box scores; I knew the feeling. My local newspaper didn’t have them, but the SF Chronicle did, and our local library had the Chronicle. So I’d walk to the library, and sometimes had to wait for someone else to finish reading it. The library had the newspaper secured on a wooden stick, if any of you remember those in libraries.
Anyone over 60 probably should, Zum.
Even as a kid, I thought it was absurd.
Buy a friggin newspaper for 7 cents….
“Thrill instead of McCovey and jack Clark over bobby B”
No and no. 🙂
That’s a great pic, Chuck! Wish I had one like it.
According to story on knbr.com dated June 9, as of today archways will be open.
I love Archway cookies…
“The right field viewing area…will be reopened.” writer is Jake Montero, and the headline to column reads “a lot is changing at Oracle Park this month, including viewing area… that may change how balls fly.”
I don’t like it. I’m a little surprised MLB let them change in the middle of the season.
I forget, were the archways being closed supposed to help the ball carry better?
Yeah, supposedly…
The original reason, I think, was Covid-19-related. To keep people from clumping up together to see into the ballpark.
Right, I think they discovered by accident that it seemed to help the ball carry…
These folks had a great view of this:
Not thrilled with the Grave Duggar on that one.
Kruk making excuses…
Could be an early night…
The cutesy “opener” concept flopped.
Maybe having Sam Long actually start the game would have been the right call.
Definitely not thrilled how ZZ Top looked.
Why does Kapler feel that Long can’t start?
4-0 and he couldn’t get even one out..
ZZ flop.
This should end the stupid opener theory.Start the kid from now on!
Openers are just so….frustrating.
I think Posey or Bailley should have come out one or two batters earlier. Littell was flailing there, give the guy a breather and try to stop from circling the drain…
Well these guys were “due”.
That 0-2 fastball to Rojas was .… more frustration. A lousy pitch call compounded by worse execution.
It was inevitable this was going to happen, but, still …
That 20 game road losing streak is looking pretty good to end tonight..
Loo, I just saw your kind comments about my boys. The Posey jersey wearer stole that from his older brother who was at the game at Oracle last night and on a CA baseball tour with three buddies (they toured SF today and luckily avoided getting their rental car broken into as four other cars around them near Ghiradelli Square including one SUV that had its entire back window smashed in middle of the day — what the hell is happening in SF and why are the residents and politicians putting up with it???). My youngest boy in that pic refused to put on any Giants swag and we tried. He has had anxiety disorder issues and does not want to draw any attention to himself so cant get him to wear any jerseys or anything that stands out in public or at school. Hopefully he keeps getting better overcomes this type of anxiety.
sorry to hear about your son’s anxiety, GH. I hope at least getting out to a game allowed him to relax and be happy. They both look like great kids.
Thank you sir. Medication definitely helps and he is coming along. He was probably 2-3 years behind classmates couple years ago and was getting achievement awards this year. Besides the anxiety he has dealt with an auditory learning disability but he is studly on the soccer field when he steps up. Of course he does not like it when I try to get him more engaged during games from the sideline. Covid really screwed him over though from kind of losing a season of soccer.
I’m sure he’ll outgrow that GH – and I bet having an older brother will be a big help.
I had ’em, too as a kid. They just didn’t have names for them…
What is crazy is how different all five of my kids are…none are alike…how does that happen? I just try to keep to myself in the basement:)
His oldest brother 21 and the one in SF on this trip gives him a lot of attention and he clearly looks up to him. The older one in the picture torments him like a lot of older brothers do…but they spend a lot of time shooting baskets and throwing whatever ball they can get in their hands around….
I only had an older sister.
Maybe that’s why I’m the only guy at the track who wears eye-liner…
Or the hair:)
HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
brings new meaning to the term :”watery grave”
A water coffin ⚰️ blast 💥 by the GraveDuggar!
Apparently the open archways not affecting the Douchebags tonight…
this shit isn’t even in the same ball park as The Grave Duggar. What the fuck is wrong with people? How can they be this boring?
Some more terrible ones:
Don Mattingly- Donnie Baseball
Ted Williams- Teddy Ballgame
Juan Marichal didn’t like Dominican Dandy, and who can blame him?
Coming from a guy with crabs not to surprising…
The Crab has stolen my frickin nickname for Duggar that bastard…
Don’t mess with perfection…
I gave up the Nets for dead in the first and KD proving he is still amazing. 46 points 16 boards and 10 assists with a minute left…drilling big 3 after big 3…very studly…
Fuck KD
Desclafani says he doesn’t like Disco, prefers T-bone, cool with me..
From the man whose warm up tune is gimme shelter. Makes sense.
Mark Bavaro didn’t like being called Rambo. He didn’t like the movie character.
Just got done watching your old pal Durant play a tremendous game — 49-17-10 in 48 minutes — and save the Nets’ season. Let’s see if the Giants can make a big comeback, too.
Colonel..Company leader Raven,Talk to me Johnny!
Crenna…You’ve done some damage here John.
Rambo ..Wouldn’t of been any sir, if it wasn’t for that cop, I just wanted something to eat but he kept pushing me sir..He drew First Blood!!
Looks like young Sammy Long got a rough second welcome to the big leagues.
And, I had him penciled in as closer. Oh, well. Let’s see how he does next time. He might have been bamboozled with the weird first inning, coming in unexpectedly…
C’mon Wilmet!
I heard he likes DeScaffolding.
Fuck.